Problem: The drama club sold bags of candy and cookies to raise money for the spring show. Bags of candy cost $$7.00$, and bags of cookies cost $$4.50$, and sales equaled $$50.00$ in total. There were $6$ more bags of cookies than candy sold. Find the number of bags of candy and cookies sold by the drama club.
Let $x$ equal the number of bags of candy and $y$ equal the number of bags of cookies. The system of equations is then: ${7x+4.5y = 50}$ ${y = x+6}$ Since we already have solved for $y$ in terms of $x$ , we can use substitution to solve for $x$ and $y$ Substitute ${x+6}$ for $y$ in the first equation. ${7x + 4.5}{(x+6)}{= 50}$ Simplify and solve for $x$ $ 7x+4.5x + 27 = 50 $ $ 11.5x+27 = 50 $ $ 11.5x = 23 $ $ x = \dfrac{23}{11.5} $ ${x = 2}$ Now that you know ${x = 2}$ , plug it back into $ {y = x+6}$ to find $y$ ${y = }{(2)}{ + 6}$ ${y = 8}$ You can also plug ${x = 2}$ into $ {7x+4.5y = 50}$ and get the same answer for $y$ ${7}{(2)}{ + 4.5y = 50}$ ${y = 8}$ $2$ bags of candy and $8$ bags of cookies were sold.